


Waking the Dreamer

by TwilightKnight17



Series: Hours 'Verse [15]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: "good" ending, I know Kasumi is there but I promise, M/M, Manipulation, NO ROYAL SPOILERS, Rescue Missions, chapter titles mean that chapter has been edited, this is Hours canon but it can stand alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 08:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21353359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightKnight17/pseuds/TwilightKnight17
Summary: Tokyo should be the safest city in the world, with the Phantom Thieves there to look after it. After all, keeping people content is as easy as a change of heart.So why does it feel wrong? And why does Goro feel like something is missing?
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Series: Hours 'Verse [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/719673
Comments: 15
Kudos: 152





	1. Southwest of Eden

**Author's Note:**

> What is this? Hours content over six months after I said it was done? XD 
> 
> I meant to finish this before Royal came out, but it got way longer than intended. Not that it matters, since this has nothing to do with Royal, honestly. This was the idea that I had shortly after the first PV, the one where Kasumi claims to not like the Phantom Thieves. It’s based on nothing else from the game itself because I haven't seen anything from the game itself, just some added details as we got more PVs and character trailers, like Cendrillon. For everyone who asked what I was planning to do with Royal: this was it. And now it’s here.
> 
> If you clicked on this without being intimidated by the "part 15" label, hi. No worries, this can stand by itself, as long as you're willing to ignore one or two little details. ^_^;;

**June, 2017**

Something about living in Tokyo didn’t feel right, sometimes.

It was a silly way to feel, considering that Goro had lived in Tokyo for nearly his entire life. But every once in a while he was overcome with a burst of _wrongness_, an uncomfortable twinge of...nostalgia? Deja-vu? He didn’t know. He had no _reason_ to think that how things were wasn’t how they were meant to be. But the feeling would pass, and his days would go on as normal.

He really had nothing to complain about. He had a good job, his own apartment, and he’d gotten to watch his father grovel on national television after the Phantom Thieves changed his heart. It hadn’t been revenge, but it had been satisfying nonetheless. And he had plenty to do, because even though the Phantom Thieves had nearly eliminated crime since their arrest warrant had been revoked the previous Christmas, lately there had been a weird uptick of missing persons, with very few clues to go on.

But still...sometimes something felt like it was missing.

Walking to the Shibuya station on his way home from work, a late-June rain falling around him, Goro stopped to glance up at the Q-Floor TV as a news report came on. They’d taken to giving a daily report on confessions prompted by the Phantom Thieves, and he stopped to listen.

Embezzlement, collusion… Honestly, minor infractions compared to the things the Thieves used to uncover. And that was just the people who confessed. Smaller changes of heart had grown increasingly common as well. Society was...quiet, because even if the Phantom Thieves couldn’t get everything, the implication was there.

...was that a good thing? Goro didn’t really waste time thinking about it.

He was getting ready to continue to the station when he spotted a girl under an awning. She was dressed in the uniform of one of the schools in the area, slightly damp and scowling at the TV, and looked like she’d been caught in the downpour. He made his way over, stopping in front of her and waving to catch her attention.

“Are you going to the station?” he asked. “I have space under my umbrella, if you want to walk with me.”

“Oh!” The girl looked startled to see him. Surprised that anyone had stopped, perhaps? She smoothed her expression into something less angry, offering him a smile. “That’s so nice of you to ask! I was on my way home when I got caught. And then I had to listen to that report…”

Goro ushered her under the umbrella, and as they ventured into the rain, he said, “I didn’t want to leave someone stranded, and you looked upset. Something in the report bothered you?”

“I’m just tired of the reports,” she murmured, melancholy.

“What do you think of the Phantom Thieves?” Goro found himself asking before he could catch himself, and somewhere in his brain, the words _clicked_. The right words, the right question... the wrong person?

The girl looked at him suspiciously. “What do _you_ think of them?” she countered, and Goro shrugged.

“I haven’t paid much attention since they changed Shido Masayoshi’s heart, to be honest. I know they make criminals repent, but...they’re not idols, or gods. They’re not something to be worshipped.”

“I don’t like them,” the girl blurted, seemingly emboldened by the fact that he wasn’t a rabid Phantom Thieves fan like so many others. “I admire that they’re trying to help, but their methods… I can’t agree with them! They’re not making anything better!”

The sudden vehemence caught Goro off-guard, but he didn’t break stride. “They’re making people confess their crimes, aren’t they?” he asked, trying to bait further conversation.

“By changing them completely!” the girl said forcefully. “It’s wrong!”

They entered the station, and as Goro lowered his umbrella, the girl turned to face him. “You of all people have to understand,” she said. “Please. Things aren’t supposed to be like this, and now…”

“Like this?” Goro questioned. “What’s that supposed to mean? What do the Phantom Thieves have to do with me?”

She stepped back. “I’m sorry. I just… Forget I said anything, Akechi-kun. Thank you for walking me to the station.”

“Wait, don’t—” But he was too late. She’d already run off, red ponytail swinging behind her as she vanished into the crowd. Goro watched her go, confused and unnerved. He hadn’t told her his name. Why would she know his name? He wasn’t anyone important. He was just a detective with the Tokyo Police.

What a weird encounter. But the Phantom Thieves went unquestioned by society nowadays. Even if she didn't like them, the warrant and associated reward had been withdrawn months ago. It didn’t matter anymore. She was either someone who opposed the Thieves, in which case they would deal with her eventually, or someone close to her had been given a change of heart, and she didn’t like what they had become in the aftermath. Which...there was nothing to be done about that. You couldn’t exactly change someone back, he assumed, and no one knew how the Phantom Thieves managed their heists, so no one else could undo it either. They would probably think you were crazy for wanting to.

People’s hearts were changed to make them better. Everyone knew that.

Still, Goro found himself thinking about the strange girl all the way home. He pondered the desperate look in her eyes as he fixed himself curry for dinner. His curry never quite tasted right, no matter how many recipes he tried. But tonight, for the first time in a while, he was more preoccupied with thinking about the Phantom Thieves than attempting to replicate a spice blend that only existed in his subconscious.

And when he finally did go to bed, his dreams were...strange.

_“What do you think of the Phantom Thieves?”_

_“They do more than the cops.”_

_“It seems I’m unwanted no matter where I go...”_

_“I’m sure loads of people want you around. You’re practically an idol.”_

_“I know, sir. The staged suicide.”_

_“Crow! There!”_

_“I’ve done everything I can to make sure my grades and my life and my reputation are as perfect as possible, so that adults will take me seriously. Because that’s the only way that anyone will want to keep me around.”_

_“I want you around!”_

_“Shido-san, my work is complete.”_

_“Idiot! Idiot! You weren’t supposed to give him the world for me!”_

Goro woke up feeling short of breath, his heart pounding. Instinctively, he pulled the blankets closer in the absence of any other comfort, shivering and uncertain. A glance at his clock showed that it was just after 4am, three hours before he needed to be awake, but the idea of trying to go back to sleep now was making him feel nauseous.

Half a year. He’d spent half a year wandering around as some content little doll, blissfully glossing over anything he’d seen or heard that didn’t seem quite right. Happily letting the world grow complacent and stupid. Happily letting the Thieves have free reign, to the detriment of everyone.

But the last thing he remembered… The ship had exploded. He’d ended up in the strange blue prison. He’d listened to a deal with a devil, helpless to stop it.

So there were two questions, then.

Who was that girl, and why had she recognized him when no one else did?

And what the hell had happened to the Phantom Thieves?

...what had happened to Akira?

***

The strange girl had been wearing a Shujin uniform, so Goro set himself up by the gate, thankful this had happened before summer break started. He watched the students as they left for the day, now hyper-aware of how no one seemed to notice him. Other than the occasional curious glance, he was completely ignored. His fame was gone along with the Thieves’ arrest warrant.

He didn’t see any of the Thieves leaving school, though. Ann, Ryuji, Haru, Makoto, Akira… None of them left the building. It was strange. Even at the height of everything before Christmas, they never skipped school. Not all at once. It just reinforced the feeling that something was wrong.

Finally the girl came out, and Goro ducked around a group of students and stopped in front of her. “We need to talk.”

Her eyes widened. “I… You’re the boy from yesterday,” she said, trying to be casual, and Goro shook his head.

“No. Don’t play dumb. You knew my name even though I didn’t introduce myself. You know me from before. You know something is wrong. So talk to me, and fill me in on what I’m missing.”

She looked around, as if searching for an escape route, but when nothing presented itself she sighed. “Fine. We’re going to the diner in Shibuya. Is that okay with you?”

“As long as you’re planning to talk,” Goro replied. He let her lead the way to the station, and together they rode all the way out to Shibuya. Once they were settled in a booth in the back of the diner, she folded her hands on the table, somber.

“My name is Yoshizawa Kasumi,” she said. “And you’re right. I know who you are. You’re Akechi Goro, the Detective Prince.”

Goro frowned. So she did remember things from before Christmas Eve. “And why is it that you know that, when no one else does?”

“I don’t know,” Kasumi said. “I’ve always been leery of the Phantom Thieves. Even before New Years, it seemed like they were...brainwashing people. But after Christmas… I don’t know why. Suddenly I was fine with them. Everyone was. Even as things got worse and worse, and they started going after normal people. Not just real criminals, but smaller crimes, interpersonal crimes. The phan-site became a hitlist. People who disagreed ended up with their hearts changed, too. But I just felt fine. Until they went after my dad.”

She hesitated, but Goro didn’t press, and after a moment she continued, “He hadn’t done anything. He was having a fight with a guy at his work, because the other guy was completely incompetant. My dad wasn’t a bad person! But his coworker put his name on the phan-site, and the Thieves changed his heart anyway!” Her fists clenched. “He wasn’t the same person afterwards. We could barely recognize him. No one else did, either. And then one day he just disappeared! That was when I started remembering what had happened before Christmas clearly. When I realized that the Phantom Thieves weren’t heroes. But I stayed quiet, because there were other people who spoke out, and their hearts changed. And then they disappeared, too.”

“...disappeared?” Goro asked, feeling ill. The missing persons reports that had been more frequent lately...he’d never considered looking at them from that angle, because he’d never considered that the Phantom Thieves were doing something wrong. But if everyone who was missing had undergone a change of heart… That was a pattern. “Do you think the Phantom Thieves are responsible for the people who have gone missing recently?”

“I don’t know,” Kasumi said. “All I know is that he left for work one day and never came back. I don’t know what it means or what else to do. You’re the first person I’ve actually talked to about this since I remembered.”

Goro stared down into his order of fries. “We have to find the Phantom Thieves.”

“But no one knows who they are,” Kasumi objected. “That’s why they’re phantoms.”

“I know who they are.” Goro ignored the startled gasp that earned him, already contemplating different avenues. There were people who knew the Thieves. Friends, family, adults in their lives. Someone would know something. “And I know who we can talk to. We can go right now.”

Kasumi was already out of her seat. “Let’s go, then! We have to stop them!”

Goro huffed. “It’s not going to be that easy. But it’s a start.”

***

The results of their investigation were...disturbing.

Kosei reported that a student called Kitagawa Yusuke was attending their school, but he was away on an artist retreat. No one they asked was sure how many students had gone or where they were going. Okumura Haru’s housekeeper claimed that the lady of the house was on vacation, but couldn’t remember when she left or when she was coming back. Mrs. Sakamoto seemed to think Ryuji was on a school trip, but couldn’t remember where, and didn’t seem very fussed over the details.

And so it was that Goro and Kasumi found themselves outside of Cafe Leblanc just before closing, tired and disappointed.

“Boss should know something,” Goro said. “He has to. He knew they were the Thieves. Two of them were his children. He _has_ to know something.” He didn’t want to admit that if Sojiro didn’t know anything, they’d lost all of their major leads.

The bell chimed quietly as they entered, and for just a moment, Goro could pretend it was September again, and he was simply coming in for a reprieve. He missed Leblanc’s coffee now that he could remember it properly. And he missed Sojiro as well.

They were the only customers in the little shop, and they could hear Sojiro bustling around in the kitchen. “Be out in a minute!” the man called, and Goro stepped up to the counter, Kasumi just behind him. But when Sojiro finally emerged from the back, he stopped dead at the sight of them. His gaze slid from Kasumi to Goro, where it locked in place, staring in confusion and shock. “Wh… What are you doing here? Akira told me… He told me you were dead.”

“He thought I was dead,” Goro said. “I sacrificed myself to get them out of Shido’s Palace safely. But… It’s a long story, Boss, and I’m not sure we have time for it now. Kasumi-chan and I are on a mission. Where is Akira?” At some point during the afternoon, he and Kasumi had ended up on a first-name basis, and Goro wasn’t willing to expend the energy to correct it at this point.

Sojiro’s expression turned melancholy. “I wish I knew, kid. I haven’t seen Akira or Futaba in over a month.” He leaned against the counter, and Goro took note of how _weary_ he looked. “I haven’t seen any of the kids in that long. People’s hearts are still being changed, so I know they have to be okay. But they haven’t come home.”

Goro and Kasumi exchanged a wide-eyed glance. They’d suspected as much, after the way that Mrs. Sakamoto had reacted, but to have it confirmed was unnerving. Kasumi wrung her hands anxiously. “Where could they be, then?”

“Do you think they could have survived inside one of those Palaces this long?” Sojiro asked Goro.

Goro hesitated, caught off-guard. “That’s… You’re sturdier in the metaverse, but you would still need to eat eventually, unless you had another source of sustenance. There’s a possibility they’re sending someone out for supplies… And if it’s just smaller changes of heart, now, it’s possible they’ve created some kind of base in Mementos…”

He was jolted out of his theorizing as Kasumi nudged him. “I’m glad you’re following this, but I’m not,” she said. “Metaverse? Mementos? Palace? Are you saying they’re hiding out in the Imperial Palace or something?”

“No, it’s…” Goro sighed, looking over at Sojiro. “Would it be possible to get some coffee? I’ve missed my usual cup, and it’s going to take a bit to get Kasumi-chan up to speed.”

“I think we could all use some coffee at this point,” Sojiro said. “Flip the sign for me, would you? This is more important than people’s evening cup.” As he turned to grab the jar of coffee beans from the shelf, he tossed casually over his shoulder, “And, kid? I’m glad you’re okay.”

***

It took at least an hour to fill Kasumi in on the basics. She was a quick learner, and accepted most of what he was telling her at face value, especially after Goro showed her the nav menu on his phone. The eye was blue now instead of red, the blue of the prison, but he hadn’t had time to worry about that.

“So we think the Phantom Thieves are in this ‘metaverse’, changing hearts from there?” Kasumi confirmed, once Goro had run out of explanation.

“I think so,” he replied. “Which means that I’m going to have to go in after them.”

“By yourself?” Sojiro asked, aghast. “I’ve seen how bedraggled they’ve been when all of you come back. And god forbid you have to fight them… You’re outnumbered.”

“Let me go with you!” Kasumi insisted. “I can help!”

“You don’t have a persona,” Goro countered. “And there’s not time to train you even if you did. I’m not going to risk you getting killed on top of everything else.”

“I’m not some helpless little girl!” she cried. “I’m a gymnast. I know how to move and dodge and climb. And if you can get me a weapon, I can at least do _something!_ ”

Goro scowled. “Fine. But I am _not_ responsible for your safety. We’ll have to get you a weapon, and I need to stock up on medicine. We’ll go tomorrow after you get out of school, and then infiltrate the Palace on Sunday. First thing in the morning. Got it?”

Kasumi saluted him, looking as serious as she could, and Sojiro shook his head. “I know I can’t stop you, so just tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Thank you, Boss,” Goro said. “We’ll bring them home. And if that means punching some sense into Akira, so be it.”

Sojiro sent them off with admonishments to be careful, and both of them returned home to awkward night’s sleeps and uncomfortable days at school and work, feeling out of place in the world more than ever before. Iwai and Takemi, thankfully, also remembered the Phantom Thieves as they should have been, and were all too happy to do business with Goro on the promise of bringing Akira back.

And so Sunday morning, they met up inside the Shibuya Station, ready to venture into Mementos and bring an end to all of this. But when Goro pulled out his phone and tried to send them into the twisted subway, the nav balked.

_-Destination not found!-_

“I don’t understand,” Goro said. “It’s the same as it’s always been. Tokyo subway, distortion, Mementos. Mementos can’t be _gone_.”

“Do you think… Do you think it’s a different distortion now?” Kasumi offered tentatively.

“It could be. But I don’t know what you would call that.” Goro cleared the fields and cut on voice recognition regardless. “Okay. What could the public see Mementos as now?”

_-Destination found!-_

Both of them stared as the ‘location’ field filled in with ‘Mementos’.

“Uh…” Kasumi began. “I know I’m new to this whole metaverse thing, but how can a Palace be the thing that’s distorted? I thought it had to be a real place.”

“It would…” Goro said slowly, “...unless the person at the source of the distortion knew about Palaces. Then they could hypothetically distort it further, because they recognize it as an actual location.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t like where this is going. ...Akira Kurusu.”

_-Candidate found!-_

The ‘name’ field filled in, and Kasumi forced a smile. “Okay, so… If I remember how you explained it, we just have to figure out what he sees Mementos as. Right? So maybe...a hunting ground, for criminals?”

_-Conditions have not been met!-_

“A prison?” Goro said, remembering blue bars and cold stone.

_-Conditions have not been met!-_

“A target range,” Kasumi said, and Goro elbowed her.

_-Conditions have not been met!-_

“We need to think about this logically,” Goro said. “The Phantom Thieves are changing the hearts of people they perceive as criminals. People they perceive as dissonant from society. They’re trying to make it so people are good, are happy, are content. They want…”

“A utopia,” Kasumi murmured, and the nav dinged cheerfully.

_-Candidate found!-_

**Name:** _Akira Kurusu_ \- **Location:** _Mementos_ \- **Distortion:** _Utopia_

“Damn it, you useless trash, what kind of fucked-up delusion are you living in?” Goro muttered.

Kasumi looked sideways at him. “You...really didn’t like him much, did you?”

“...It’s complicated.” Goro held his thumb over the button. “Are you ready?”

She patted her jacket pocket, where the model gun they’d bought her was safely hidden. “Let’s go!”

For all of her bravado, she still grabbed onto his arm as they shifted from reality to the metaverse. He wasn’t sure what they were going to find, but as the shift finished, Shibuya Station didn’t really look any different. He was in his thief gear, though, and Kasumi was staring at him.

“I know you said outfits were a thing, but wow,” she said, and he steadfastly attempted to ignore her commentary. Having his proper outfit and cape back after so long felt good.

“Be quiet. We have more important things to worry about than how I look.” Rather than going further into the station, Goro walked out into the Scramble. Mementos’s distortion was usually contained below the ground, but with Akira’s influence on it as well...

It was Tokyo, but it was _beautiful._ The normal buildings were intertwined with nature everywhere he looked. Ivy coiled over most structures, flowers grew from cracks in the sidewalk, and some of the buildings themselves even looked as though they were growing around massive trees. Everything seemed lighter, brighter, _better_. There were more windows, more light… and there were actually shadows aboveground that looked happy.

“This is how he’s seeing the city?” Goro murmured.

“Er, Goro-senpai?” Kasumi said. She’d followed him out into the Scramble, and now was staring somewhere off to the southwest. “What is that?”

Goro turned to look, and his jaw dropped. There was a castle looming on the horizon, higher than the skyscrapers and made of polished white stone. It practically gleamed, like the jewel at the peak of a crown, a cathedral watching over the city. “That’s...a palace,” he said faintly. “And it looks like it’s covering most of Yongen. Sakura-san will be disappointed to know that apparently Akira was home the whole time…”

“So we’re going there?” Kasumi put a hand on her pocket, making sure her gun was still there, and Goro nodded.

“We have to find Akira. The distortion has attached itself to him, so he’s the one whose heart we need to appeal to. But...if it’s the real him and not his shadow, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Kasumi said, forcing a smile. “We have to get to him first, though. So let’s go!”

***

The above-ground trains were still running in Utopia Tokyo, sleek silver things with windows of stained glass. Even with the seriousness of their mission, they couldn’t help but admire the beauty of Akira’s cognition. It wouldn’t be so bad if the real Tokyo could look like this, just without the forced changes of heart and cowed populace.

The gates of the palace were golden, made of intricate spirals and swooping lengths. They stood open, welcoming people in, though guards in white and silver armor with golden emblems of wings stood watching the front doors. They didn’t attempt to stop the pair, though, even opening the doors for them to usher them into the main hall.

_“The hall and gardens are open to the public,”_ one shadow said, and Goro nodded his acknowledgement before grabbing Kasumi’s hand and quickly dragging her inside.

It was just as beautiful as outside. The hall had a high, arched ceiling, with glass domes acting as skylights and intricate columns for support. Footpaths wound between stretches of emerald grass and colorful flowers, meandering down towards a fountain at the far end before looping back towards the entrance. It was incredible, but it wasn’t what they were here for.

“We have to find a way into the rest of the palace,” Goro said lowly. “Let’s walk for a bit, and see if we can locate any doors that may be concealed by the plants.”

“You know it’s going to look like we’re on a date, right?” Kasumi replied, but she took his arm regardless.

“Hush. We need to keep a low profile until we can figure out where we’re going.” They set off around the hall, sticking to the paths that were closest to the walls and making sure not to make eye contact with the guards. Halfway down, they found a branching hallway with an entire living wall of moss and ivy, curving around out of sight, and Kasumi tugged Goro’s arm. “Let’s try this way.”

It was so strange to not have to be overtly stealthy, at least not yet. And somehow, working with the entire group of rowdy Phantom Thieves hadn’t prepared him for the experience of being paired with just a single teammate. Especially one with no practical knowledge of what they were getting themselves into. But it was also slightly reassuring to not be alone, and when they found a room where the ceiling was entirely covered in hanging wisteria, for a moment he could pretend this was just something extraordinary and lovely, and not a reason to be worried.

But then he spotted a door, camouflaged by greenery, and he beckoned Kasumi to keep watch as he made his way around a towering bush to work on picking the lock.

The door was tricky, which wasn’t a surprise, considering it was born of a thief’s cognition. But Goro was as handy with a lockpick as Akira, and eventually there was a quiet click. “Kasumi, let’s go.”

With a last scan of the hallway, she followed him, and they stepped through into something that more closely resembled the cathedral-like outside. The hallway was lined with pale-tinted stained glass windows, with little in the way of cover other than narrow, decorative half-pillars.

“Which way should we go?” Kasumi asked softly.

Goro tried to orient the castle in his mind to compare to what he knew of Yongen. It was likely that the center of this distortion was Leblanc, so if they could get to the corresponding location in the castle, they would probably find Akira. “This way, I think…” he said, gesturing to the left. “We want to find a throne room, most likely. Something that looks like the cafe. Stay close, and if anything attacks us, keep yourself at a distance and don’t hesitate to use that gun.”

She nodded, tense. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake, taking her into this with as little knowledge as she had, but it wasn’t like they had a choice. At this point, the Phantom Thieves were too dangerous to leave alone. And the longer he and Kasumi went without doing anything, the higher the chance that they got to her and changed her heart, since she didn’t have a persona to protect her. He didn’t want her to disappear, if that was truly what was happening to victims of changes of heart.

They avoided confrontation as much as possible, especially in the halls where other guards could potentially hear the sound of a fight and come running. A few side rooms they looked through forced them to subdue a guard, but Kasumi handled herself well, staying out of the way and conserving her bullets until she was sure she had a clear shot. That wasn’t something Goro had explained, but she picked it up fine on her own. And eventually they stumbled on two guards talking, and Goro pushed Kasumi behind one of the decorative plants to listen.

_“It’s your turn for a dungeon shift, isn’t it? Just be careful. That little brat down there is always trying to sweet-talk the guards.”_

_“Hasn’t she learned by now that only the Lord can open the quarantine cell? Even if we agreed with her, she couldn’t accomplish anything.”_

_“I don’t know. Just watch yourself. The Seraph doesn’t trust her.”_

Kasumi nudged Goro. “Seraph?” she whispered.

“The...thing that Akira made a deal with was some sort of false god. Therefore I can only assume that a powerful servant of that god would be some form of angel.” Goro swallowed back the uncomfortable feeling that he knew who they meant, and moved to follow the guard towards the dungeon. If someone was being held prisoner, it might be someone who could help them. A thief who had disagreed with the new methods, perhaps?

As they descended the stairs, the guard’s form shifted to the tall, blobbish, distorted shapes that wandered Mementos, and it occurred to Goro that they only had proper form above the ground. The influence creating the utopia only reached so far, which meant that perhaps Akira wasn’t actually the ruler of Mementos. Only his specific space, distortion within distortion. The aboveground, not below.

In hindsight, walking into the dungeon wasn’t the smartest idea. Yes, they could handle two guards on their own, but it turned out that the guards’ quarters were also on the lower floor, which meant that many more rushed in to act as backup. In the narrow rooms, it was near-impossible to fight with any finesse, even after Goro determined they were weak to bless attacks. He took too many hits to consistently summon because of the crowd of guards and his efforts to shield Kasumi, and they were in too close of quarters for Kasumi to reliably aim without hitting Goro. The few shots she did manage to get off had no effect on the guards, and as she was backhanded to the floor, Goro lunged to help and was thrown violently into a wall. 

One of the guards walked over and picked up Kasumi by her arm. _“The thief I can see, but he brought a little girl with him?”_ he said. _“What were you supposed to be? Bait?”_

“Shut up!” Kasumi snarled, kicking and flailing.

_“You are the sort of disagreeable brat that doesn’t belong in our Lord’s society. Stop struggling. Your friend cannot save you, and you cannot hope to overcome us on your own. Surrender, and you can be saved with a change of heart.”_

“SHUT UP!” Kasumi’s eyes were wild, and from where he was laying on the floor, booted feet keeping him pinned, Goro saw them flash gold.

Yes. Good.

She swung herself up, kicking both legs high and using the momentum to break the guard’s grip on her. Her feet landed on his shoulders, and for a split second she perched there, before leaping back to the floor and staring them down.

“I’m so _tired_ of everyone thinking I need someone to save me!” she cried. “I can handle myself! I don’t need him, and I _certainly_ don’t need the Phantom Thieves!”

_“The Phantom Thieves are creating a perfect society. They are bringing everyone salvation.”_

“I don’t _want_ salvation!” Kasumi screamed, and a shockwave burst from her, driving the guards back, throwing the ones pinning Goro off-balance. “I don’t want salvation from the monsters that took my dad from me!”

** _Beautiful dreamer, wishing for how things should be… It is good to hear your resolve._ **

Kasumi stumbled, and it was obvious that the only thing keeping her from falling down was the excellent balance she’d demonstrated as they snuck through the Palace. “Wh… What is…”

** _Time is short, and midnight approaches. Let us make the best of this outing, and show them your strength, even if just for this one night!_ **

“Yes…” Kasumi reached up, finding the golden silk mask that had formed over her eyes, covered in intricate patterns. “I won’t sit and wait any more! Come, Cendrillon!”

The persona that formed behind her was crystalline blue accented with gold, elegant and lethal in equal measure. Kasumi herself stood tall in royal blue, also detailed with gold. She held a rapier tightly in her hand, and with a yell she lunged forward, plunging the sword into one guard’s heart. Goro got to his feet, his own sword in hand, and said sharply, “Bless attacks, if you have them! Otherwise, stick to melee!”

He knew better than anyone that the spells were instinctive, and Kasumi proved him correct when, without hesitation, she gestured at the mob of guards and cried, _“Makouga!”_

Holy light crashed down upon them, and Goro took the opportunity to dart in with his blade and take advantage of their downed state. With two of them wielding bless magic, the shadow-guards were much more easily taken out, and eventually they were left in the quiet dungeon, out of breath but in one piece.

“Why wasn’t my gun working before?” Kasumi panted. “I tried, but it wasn’t doing anything.”

“Of course Akira would have shadows immune to guns… They’re weak to bless, because they’re curse elementals, like him. The gun resistance is...well, a specific cognition.” Goro shook his head. “You did fine, and now that you have your persona, we’ll be better-prepared if we get ambushed again. But I’m worried the awakening might have exhausted you…”

“I’m fine!” she insisted. But then she finally seemed to notice her outfit for the first time. “Whoa. Is this like when yours changed?”

“Yes. It’s a manifestation of your inner rebellion. Or something.” That was the line the Thieves had offered back when he’d first started working with them, not realizing he already knew plenty about the metaverse. He’d been skeptical then about the consequences and ethics of changing a heart, and they had assured him it was fine. Like removing a tumor, Akira had said. And now here they were, using that very thing as a weapon against the people they’d promised to help.

The most dangerous thing was someone who genuinely believed that their actions were for your own good.

“We can at least look around the dungeon,” he said at last. “But I don’t want to risk you wearing out mid-fight if we keep going into the Palace.” Before she could object, he said, “That’s not a criticism of you. That’s experience with this sort of thing. You feel fine now, yes, but so did everyone else. And then the exhaustion caught up to them.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Just the dungeon.” She moved towards the entry to where the cells were, rapier still held loosely in one hand.

“I presume your outfit is based on your gymnastics background, and that your training is how you did that flip off of the guard?” Goro asked, letting her take point and following close behind, watching their backs.

“Yeah. I’m a rhythmic gymnast now, but when I first started I did beam and bars,” Kasumi explained. “I like the dance aspect and working with the props more, though. The ribbons are my favorite.”

“It’s ironic…” Goro murmured. “Akira also has a gymnastics background. He stopped before high school, though.”

“You know a lot about him,” Kasumi commented, but before he could reply, they spotted a figure in one of the cells. She barely reached Goro’s waist, with long platinum hair and half-familiar golden eyes that widened when she saw them.

“Goro-san!” she cried, and Goro stepped around Kasumi, curious but wary.

“Who are you?”

She seemed to collect herself, ducking her head politely. “Forgive me, we’ve never been properly introduced. My name is Lavenza. I am an attendant of the Velvet Room, and specifically I was meant to be you and the Trickster’s attendant.”

“Akira?” Goro said, then, “Wait, Velvet Room? The blue prison?”

“It was not intended to be a prison,” Lavenza said, an edge of desperation in her voice. “The false god usurped my master’s place and warped it into what it became. And now things have become even more distorted.”

“Akira’s ruined everything,” Goro said. “He took the deal the god offered. I could hear him.”

“Yes. I… I wasn’t myself at the time, but I was still shocked, regardless. With my memories restored, I was able to pull myself back together into my proper form eventually, but when I attempted to convince Akira-san that he had made a mistake, things were too far gone. He locked me down here.” Lavenza looked down at the floor. “His desire has distorted the aboveground of Mementos into his utopia, and he and his Thieves change the hearts of any they deem a threat to the false god’s order. Akira-san believes he is doing it to keep everyone happy, but truly he has been manipulated into fulfilling the false god’s desires to remain in control.”

“So we really do have to knock some sense into him,” Goro sighed. “Why are people disappearing, though?”

“If the people around someone do not accept their change of heart, if their cognition of the person does not match the person’s new state, the new version disappears,” Lavenza explained. “They do not see the new person as the ‘real’ one, so they fade from cognition. The real world and Mementos are more closely tied together now because of the false god’s power, so without cognition of them, they cease to exist in reality as well.”

“Does… Does that mean my dad vanishing was our fault? M-My mom and I? Because we thought he wasn’t like he used to be at all?” Kasumi whispered, horrified. “I… Oh, god…”

“It’s not,” Goro said firmly. “It’s the Thieves’ fault, for needlessly changing his heart in the first place. And we’re going to stop them.”

“He’ll listen to you. I’m sure of it,” Lavenza insisted. “You can fix this, Goro-san.”

“Wait, wait,” Kasumi interrupted, still looking shaken after the revelation about her father. “He’s the Detective Prince. He was trying to stop the Thieves, before he stopped doing appearances. He was behind the trick that got one of them arrested. Why is the leader of the Thieves going to listen to his enemy, especially now?”

Lavenza looked at Goro. “You...did not tell her?”

“It wasn’t important,” Goro said.

“What wasn’t important?”

“It’s nothing.”

“How are we going to do this if you’re keeping secrets?” Kasumi huffed.

“It’s not important!” Goro snarled, and she took a step back.

Lavenza reached through the bars of her cell to grab Goro’s sleeve. “Stop!” she ordered. “Regardless of what you wish to tell anyone, it still falls to you to attempt to get through to the Trickster. We are out of options.”

“We can get you out so you can come with us,” Goro said. “I can pick the door. I learned from the best, after all.”

“I would be of no help to you,” Lavenza said. “He’s already refused to listen to me, and without his compendium, I cannot aid you in battle. If you can put things to rights, my master and I will be free anyway. So go, and don’t worry about me. Save him.”

It became clear that beneath the veneer of professionalism she was trying to project, Lavenza was afraid. Goro didn’t think it was for herself; if she was from that strange blue place, she was probably much stronger than she looked. But afraid for Akira, and afraid for the world if he was left unchecked...that was more likely.

Goro thought of the boy who had once gone to hell and back to bring him back from the edge, and nodded. “I’m going to save him. No matter what. I promise.”

“All I can do is this,” Lavenza said softly. “Give me your hands.”

They obliged, and she bowed her head, concentrating. Energy filled them, enough to put both of them back at one-hundred percent, and Kasumi gasped softly as the sudden rush highlighted how tired she’d actually been.

Once she was done, Lavenza released them, her expression more determined than it had been since they arrived. “Go now. And be careful, both of you.”

“We will.” But Goro hesitated. “Lavenza… Where’s Morgana?” He knew, of everyone in the Thieves, Morgana wouldn’t stand for what had been happening. Something was wrong. The Thieves had lost their guiding light somewhere along the way.

Lavenza just looked sad. “When things began to grow worse…” she murmured. “He… With no free will, there can be no Hope.”

The meaning of her words hit home for Goro, at least, and he nodded solemnly in thanks for the information. Kasumi, mercifully, didn’t ask what that meant, and they turned to leave the dungeon, slinking back the way they’d come to avoid alerting any more guards. But before they returned upstairs, Kasumi caught a handful of his cape and brought him to a halt. “What are you not telling me about him?”

Goro gritted his teeth. “I don’t know what you mean. I said it was nothing important. We have a mission, remember?”

“You call him by his first name. With no honorific. He’s not ‘Kurusu-san’ or even ‘Akira-kun’,” she insisted. “You don’t talk about him like an enemy or a rival. And you didn’t arrest him even though you knew who he was. You talk about him like you knew him really well, instead.”

“So what if I did?” Goro countered, pulling his cape from her grasp and starting up the stairs. “It’s not important.”

“It’s important if Lavenza thinks you’re the one who can talk some sense into him.” Kasumi followed him, scowling. “I just want to know what to expect, you jerk. He clearly meant something to you.”

“Why are you trying to make this harder than it already is?” Goro demanded. They emerged into the hall and were almost immediately confronted with another guard, this one in even more elaborate armor. They froze, and the guard reached for his sword.

_“Intruders, you are not permitted in this area of—”_ But then he hesitated. _“...you look familiar, thief.”_

“Me?” Goro glanced at Kasumi. He reached up very slowly and removed his mask, ready to summon his persona in moments if this turned out to be a trick, but the guard straightened up at the sight of his bare face.

_“It is you! I have seen your face before, in the photo on the Seraph’s shrine. You are thought to be dead.”_

“I… I nearly was,” Goro said honestly. “Your...Seraph believed that I fell in battle. I was hoping to find him, to show him that I’m all right.”

“What are you doing?!” Kasumi hissed.

_“You must come before the Seraph regardless, to face judgment for your intrusion on this holy ground,”_ the guard said. _“But I am quite sure he will be lenient to you, of all people. Come.”_

Kasumi was staring at him like she wanted to set him on fire with her gaze alone. The demand for answers was clear in the disapproving curve of her lips and the furrow of her brow above her mask, but Goro just replaced his mask and beckoned her to follow. “Thank you,” he told the guard. “I’d hoped to speak with him in person.”

***

They were marched through the halls, not to a throne room as Goro assumed, but to a garden separate from the one in the entrance hall. It didn’t appear to be based on Leblanc, so Goro still believed that the core of the Palace was elsewhere. But standing near the center of the garden, facing away, was a slender figure draped in robes of white and gold, his fluff of dark hair striking in its contrast. The tips were turning pale blond, as if the color were bleeding out of him. In any other context, it might have been an intriguing fashion choice, but in this place it was more ominous than anything. 

When he turned to face them, his eyes widened, emphasizing silvery-grey irises ringed with gold, and he cried out, “Goro!”

Kasumi, shocked at the sight of him, didn’t move, even as the guard that had been at their backs took his leave. But Goro took a few steps forward cautiously. “Akira…”

Both of them jumped with surprise as Akira darted forward much faster than they were expecting. He reached Goro before Kasumi could even draw her rapier, but he just flung his arms around Goro’s neck, pressing himself close. “You’re here. I knew, I knew you were okay! I knew you would find your way back to me!”

“Akira, what?” Goro asked, but his arms instinctively wrapped around Akira’s waist. He was so thin. Sojiro had said he hadn’t been home in a month. How was he managing?

“I knew I did the right thing,” Akira said with relief, muffled into his neck. “People are happy, the world isn’t destroyed, and you’re alive. That’s all I wanted.”

Goro gently took him by the shoulders and pushed him back. “I never died, Akira. I was imprisoned.”

“You wouldn’t remember being dead,” Akira said. He reached up to cup Goro’s face in his hands, leaning in. “Our Lord said that I shouldn’t search for you, or it could disrupt the peace. He said that you would remember and return to me on your own, and you have! I’m so grateful.”

He pressed his lips to Goro’s, and Goro was ashamed to admit that he instinctively kissed back, his grip on Akira’s shoulders loosening enough for Akira to press close again. Whether he was glowing with faux-holy light or not, this was still the boy he was in love with. The boy he hadn’t seen in six lonely months, the piece that had always felt like it was missing. But eventually he had to pull away, looking into Akira’s haloed eyes, and behind him he heard Kasumi say quietly, “This is what you wouldn’t tell me.”

“He saved me once,” Goro replied, equally quietly, never taking his eyes off of Akira. “He walked straight to the depths of my heart and saved me from myself. He never gave up on me. And now I have to save him, too.”

He heard Kasumi draw her sword. “I get it now; he’s your boyfriend. But the world is falling apart, and people fear the Phantom Thieves as much as they love them. We have to end this.”

“No,” Akira said. His arms were still twined around Goro, one hand threading gold-ringed fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “Don’t you see? This is how things should be.”

“Goro,” Kasumi insisted, and he turned to look at her. “We can’t have gotten all the way here just for you to hesitate now.”

“Give me a minute!” he snapped, curling an arm back around Akira’s waist. “It’s been half a year, Kasumi, let me process for a second.”

“It’s been too long,” Akira agreed. “That’s why you should stay here with me. I’ve been waiting.”

He could _feel_ Kasumi’s stare burning into him. But he just reached up and cradled Akira’s face in his palm, feeling Akira lean into it like the cat he so resembled. This was delicate. They had to be careful. Akira’s distortion was like nothing he’d ever seen before, twisted and warped around Tokyo’s. It wasn’t even like how Akira had described Goro’s Palace. So the situation was incredibly fragile.

“I want to stay with you,” he said. “I do, Akira. So let me stay, and let’s put the world back how it was.”

Akira nuzzled his hand. “I can’t, Goro.”

Goro smiled, an edge of plastic to it. “All right, then what if we change everything back to normal, and then I’ll stay with you?”

“...that’s the same thing, honey. You’re clearly not completely recovered yet, if that’s the sort of wordplay you tried,” Akira laughed, kissing his cheek fondly.

“I should have known you’d see right through me. Always too clever,” Goro murmured, but his smile had slipped. “Why can’t we put things back to how they were? Kasumi-chan is right. So many people cheer on the Phantom Thieves, but even more are afraid, worried that their hearts will change if they make even one mistake. People can’t live like that, with blades over their heads. You and I should know that better than anyone, shouldn’t we?”

“But like this, people like Shido can’t happen again,” Akira said. “This is better. People like him can’t hurt anyone anymore. We make sure of it. No one else will ever have to suffer like we did.”

“That’s so st—” Kasumi began, but Goro hushed her.

“Don’t you understand,” he murmured, “that by doing this, you’ve taken Shido’s place? You’re using the metaverse to manipulate people into thinking like you. You’re using it to control them. Just like he would have.” He paused, and Akira was silent, so he continued, “Please, don’t you see why this is a problem?”

“...yes.”

Goro breathed a sigh of relief, but then made a startled sound when Akira’s grip on him tightened. “Wh…!”

“I see the problem,” Akira said, and his gaze slid from Goro to Kasumi. “This girl has distorted your perception. She’s poisoned your thoughts of me. She needs a change of heart, but if she has a persona, I’ll need to break her first.”

“Goro-senpai!” Kasumi called, but before he could tug away from Akira, the vines of the garden rose at the ruler’s wordless command, binding his wrists and ankles and keeping him in place even after Akira let him go. He struggled against his bonds, but as Akira stepped around him to face Kasumi, the vines transfigured to golden chains, weighing him down.

“Persona!” he tried as a last-ditch effort, but he couldn’t reach his mask, and the call went unanswered. So instead he shouted, “Kasumi, be careful! Without his persona, I don’t know his weaknesses!”

“Great,” Kasumi huffed, grip tightening on her rapier.

“Don’t worry, Goro,” Akira said. “This will be over quickly.”

As Goro and Kasumi watched with wide eyes, wings spread from below Akira’s robes, three pairs of feathery white, stretching wide. The gold around his eyes grew more intense, and from nowhere, he pulled a pair of knives as long as his forearms, wickedly pointed and flickering with heavenly fire. He looked every inch the seraph that the guards had named him, and though Kasumi tried to stand her ground, it was clear to Goro that she was uncertain.

But she struck first, tearing off her mask with a yell. “Cendrillon, _kouga!_ ”

Akira took the hit without flinching. “Bless attacks against someone who bears our Lord’s holy power?” he asked, tilting his head with a mocking smile. “Is that the best you can do?”

Without waiting for a response, he shot forward with his knives, slashing like he intended to cut her open. Kasumi managed to dodge, throwing herself into an awkward cartwheel, but it didn’t take her far. Akira grinned wildly. “You’re more mobile than you look. But dodging won’t save you forever. Why can’t you just accept it? I’m doing this to keep people safe! All Shido wanted to do was hurt people!”

“You _are_ hurting people, whether you think so or not!” Kasumi retorted. “You hurt me!” She called Cendrillon again, this time trying ice, and while it clearly had an effect, it wasn’t enough to slow him down.

“No,” he insisted, throwing frost from his wings with a powerful flap. “You only think that because you’re distorted, too. People shouldn’t live like that! And I have the power to fix it!”

“People keep becoming distorted _because_ you keep ‘fixing’ things!” Kasumi darted forward, aiming for the seraphic thief’s abdomen with her rapier, but he deflected it with one of his knives. Neither of them were paying attention to Goro, straining against the chains to reach his mask and screaming for them to stop. Kasumi tried another strike, and this time their blades locked, leaving her uncomfortably close to Akira as she spat furiously, “No one has any free will anymore!”

“That’s a _lie!_ ” Akira pushed her back with such force that she flew halfway across the garden, landing in a bush covered in tiny blue flowers.

Desperately Goro called, “Akira, stop! She’s right! This can’t be what you wanted! You’re just a puppet for the false god!”

“I’m not a puppet! I’m in control!” Akira rounded on Goro, who tugged harder at his chains, ignoring the pain in his wrists as they dug in.

“How are you in control? We’re in the middle of your Palace.” There was a faint, metallic crack, and Goro leaned as far as the chains would allow towards the furious angel. “What happens when you’re the only one left with a distortion? Will you change your own heart back to the Akira I love, and not this person I don’t recognize?”

Akira stopped dead. “I just want everyone to be okay!” he howled. “I don’t want to lose anyone else!”

The room quaked, the plants shivered. Kasumi stumbled where she had finally climbed out of the bush. Another crack, and Goro tugged one of his arms free as the shackle broke. “We’ll be okay,” he promised fervently. “We’ll be okay, Akira, but only if you give up this madness. That’s how you can make everything better!”

Akira wobbled, then sank to his knees, grabbing at his hair. “I can’t have been doing the wrong thing this whole time. I can’t. I can’t. What… What have I been doing…”

The chains crumbled, and Goro staggered as he was suddenly cut loose. When he looked up, Kasumi was approaching Akira from behind, her rapier up as if she intended to strike, and he reached for his mask instinctively.

“Mordred!”

The knight appeared between Kasumi and Akira, cutting off her line of sight, and she stopped. “Goro-senpai, what are you doing?”

Goro waved her to step back. Mordred faded, but Goro left his mask off, kneeling before Akira as he slumped over with his wings splayed around him. “I know, Akira,” he murmured. “You were doing what you thought was best. You wanted to help everyone, even if you were doing wrong. We’re still so similar.” He leaned in to pull the wilted angel into a hug. “I forgive you. Just like you forgave me for everything. So come back and be the Joker I know, not a toy for a monster. People are worried. Boss misses you. I miss you. Please.”

Kasumi looked like she was still waiting for something to go wrong, her rapier nervously held before her. But Akira reached up, holding onto him with shaking hands, and Goro pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I mean it. I forgive you. And I love you.”

“Goro… I… I just…”

There was a sudden rumbling, and the room began to grow brighter. The skylights flashed brighter than daylight, and Akira flinched. “My Lord… I…”

“Kasumi,” Goro snapped. “Go, right now. You have to get out of here. Something is coming.”

“What about you?” she demanded.

“I’m not leaving him. Not again,” Goro said, shifting like he could shield Akira from everything with his body alone. “You have to find the others. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to end this!”

“Search the other wings,” Akira said, sounding pained. “They… Under my influence, they… It’s all gone too far…”

“Go!” Goro ordered, and against her better judgement she turned and ran, crossing the threshold back into the hallway just as there was a massive burst of light from above. When she looked back into the garden, the detective and the fallen angel were gone. She was alone in a massive Palace, with no idea where to start.

What was she going to do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Utopia Tokyo music (skip to 4:31 for inside the castle, once they bypass the garden)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiWXrVXOMAU)
> 
> Utopia Tokyo is supposed to be based on a very solarpunk aesthetic. Something sort of like [this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/86/1c/cc/861ccc93c8acebb93c9c2cda0147b984.jpg), or [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/128eb8b7c2c0ffc1ee0e15a65902c93a/tumblr_p9jo7gR0TS1wnn8hoo1_1280.jpg), with maybe a dash of a daytime version of [Fennmont](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3NcUk-WQAEX2HL.jpg:large) (since I love [Fennmont](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/dc/01/0adc01ff2b6ecd9523087c4df6fa4e67.jpg)). ^_^
> 
> The entrance hall and the Seraph's Garden are based loosely on the conservatory at [Longwood Gardens](https://longwoodgardens.org/) in Pennsylvania, which I got to visit once for the Christmas lights display with a friend. You can go through the website, or have some example pictures [here](https://longwoodgardens.org/components/highlight-item/49414), [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdettling/2681197358/in/photostream/lightbox/), [here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Green_wall_-_Longwood_Gardens_-_DSC01042.JPG), [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/royanddoloreskelley/16231005502/in/photostream/lightbox/), and [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nikkornova/5821143205/in/photostream/lightbox/).


	2. Angels Fall First

If there was one thing that was different between the Utopia Palace and the Palaces that Goro had described to her, it was the absolute lack of traps, tricks, or intent to harm. He’d described laser puzzles, fighting robots, secondhand accounts of swinging blades and massive stones waiting to crush intruders to dust. Dangerous games against shadows that would kill to win, cognitions of assassins prepared to hunt them down and eliminate them...

But all Kasumi found in the Palace was hallways, ordinary rooms, and shadow guards that were more interested in subduing her than killing her when she accidentally alerted them to her presence. Even the ones in the dungeon hadn’t been aiming to kill; they’d thrown her into a wall, but they’d had plenty of opportunities for much more lethal hits, and they hadn’t taken them.

The east wing shifted to halls tinted pink as Kasumi picked her way through the first floor. It would have been easy to leave. Go back out the front, go home, and accept that she was probably in over her head, trying to convince a bunch of strangers without the aid of someone that knew them. But she’d come too far to give up now. She ducked behind a potted plant, a ficus with red leaves in the shape of hearts, to let a guard pass. Once he was out of sight, she made her way to the double-doors at the end of the hall. The doorknobs were shaped like flames, made of polished crystal, and with only a second of hesitation, Kasumi stepped inside.

The door swung closed behind her, leaving her in a teenage girl’s bedroom. There was a massive wardrobe overflowing with fashionable clothes, full-sized mirrors, a luxurious bed covered in pillows, and towers of shoe boxes. And in the center of the chaos was a girl with blonde pigtails, wearing a red catsuit with a whip attached to her hip. She was hanging up a flamenco-style dress with a flared skirt, and glanced over at Kasumi when she heard the door.

“Oh my gosh, look at your outfit!” she squealed. “That’s so cute! You look like an adorable gymnast. Joker would like you.”

“I… What?” Kasumi just stared at her. This girl seemed weirdly unconcerned by an intruder.

“Oh, do you not know Joker? He’s our leader, and he’s got some gymnastics training. He never dressed in anything like this, though...” The girl flitted towards Kasumi, and as she got closer, Kasumi could see the ring of silver around her blue irises beneath her mask. “He used to wear all black, except for his gloves. But he doesn’t really dress like that anymore. Not since we started really making progress fixing society.”

“Fixing society,” Kasumi murmured. “Is that really what it is?”

“Of course!” The girl reached for Kasumi’s hand. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Panther. Come here, I have the _perfect_ brooch to complement your hair and your outfit. It’s blue topaz and garnet.” As she tugged Kasumi to a large, freestanding jewelry box and began to rifle through it, she said, “We’ve made things soooo much better. We can change the hearts of scummy men before they ever manage to hurt a girl. Pull any bad thoughts right out of their heads and make sure they never would.”

Kasumi swallowed hard. “I know about Kamoshida,” she said. “I know what he did to that girl on the volleyball team. But...you can’t just assume everyone is like him. You can’t punish someone for what they haven’t done.”

Panther paused, and looked over at her. “Shiho. Her name is Shiho. And I don’t want anything to happen to another girl like what happened to her. People are safer this way.”

“Because you get rid of the ‘bad thoughts’?” Kasumi asked. “You’re just condemning people based on your personal bias. I bet you have friends that are boys. Do you think they’ve never had a ‘bad’ thought? Would you change their hearts?”

“Skull isn’t like that!” Panther objected. “Neither is Fox! They would never…” But then she hesitated. “They...did, though. Ryuji… Ryuji made jokes and stared at girls all the time… But he’d never hurt anyone. And Yusuke pressured me to model that one time, but… He’d never do something awful either. He’s a good person. They…”

The silver in her eyes flickered, and Kasumi tensed, not sure whether to prepare for an attack or try to push further. Mentioning her friends seemed to be the right answer, but how far did she need to go? “Why aren’t they here?” she asked. “All of you are all alone, separated. Why?”

“I… I don’t…” Panther grew more distressed as she realized that she didn’t know how to answer the question. “We’ve been handling things on our own… Making our own decisions… That’s not how it’s supposed to work! It’s supposed to be unanimous!” She stepped back from Kasumi, shaking her head furiously. “What happened to us?”

“Your leader’s a puppet for a false god that wants to control everything,” Kasumi said bluntly. “You have to help me stop him. Goro’s with him, but I don’t know how much he can do alone.”

“G-Goro’s alive?” Panther started to tear up, and the ring of silver flashed before disappearing from her eyes. “Goro’s okay? He… We thought he died in the Ship. Akira thought he died…”

“He was here with me,” Kasumi promised. “He sent me to find you, so that we could all get Akira out of here. Together.”

“Together…” the other girl said softly. “What… What happened? What went wrong?”

“Akira’s distortion, most likely. It probably warped you the same way it’s warping the city,” Kasumi explained. “Help me fix him. Help me fix everyone. Please.”

Panther laughed, tears running down her face. “I’m Ann,” she said, reaching up to scrub at her eyes with one gloved hand, and offering the other to Kasumi. “I’m… I’m so sorry. Thank you for waking me up.”

Kasumi shook her head. “I’m Kasumi. And it’s no trouble,” she said, taking Ann’s hand and squeezing. “I… You aren’t what I expected from the Phantom Thieves at all. You’re all just as much victims in this as everyone else, I think…” It was hard to admit, but the Palace alone had proved that at their core, the Thieves had good intentions. “I spent so long hating you for what you’d done, but there’s no point now. We just have to fix this, and everything will go back to being the way it should.”

“And now you’ve got me for backup!” Ann said, trying for a peppy tone. “I can’t believe Goro left you by yourself. And didn’t even give you a code name!”

“Is that why you’re ‘Panther’?” Kasumi asked curiously.

“Yeah.” Ann struck a pose. “The point was to protect our identities in the metaverse. I don’t know if that even matters anymore, but if you wanted one…”

“I’m not one of you,” Kasumi said. “But… I’ll think about it.”

…’Midnight’ had a nice ring to it. Not that she would admit that.

***

The next Thief they encountered was Ryuji, in every teenage boy’s dream room. A TV the size of a movie theater screen, stacks upon stacks of games, sports equipment of every kind… And in the center of it, the skull-masked Thief, grinning and reading comics.

“Ryuji!” Ann called as soon as they entered. He looked up, brow furrowed.

“We don’t call each other that anymore, do we?” he asked, confused.

“We’re here to wake you up,” Kasumi said. He had the same silver ring around his irises that Ann had, and it had finally clicked in her mind that it was because they were under the influence of Akira’s delusion, not the false god’s power. That was why Akira’s eyes had been tainted with gold, instead. “You’re destroying people by changing all of these hearts.”

Ryuji scoffed. “Nah, we’re keeping people safe from abusive assholes. Teachers can’t get away with abusing their students anymore, because we stop them!” He tossed his comic aside and got up, staring down Kasumi.

“School’s turning into a joke,” Kasumi said. “Class is so pointless. The people that want to learn barely can, because the troublemakers run riot over everyone else. And the teachers are too afraid to reprimand them. There’s no trust between them and the students anymore.”

“They don’t need to be afraid, if they’re not doin’ anything wrong,” Ryuji huffed.

“Mr. Ushimaru is gone,” Kasumi snapped. “He’s disappeared. You changed his heart and he ceased to exist.”

“Wh… That doesn’t make any sense,” Ryuji objected. “He was strict, but he wasn’t abusive.”

“I don’t know all the details, since he’s a second-year teacher, but apparently he reprimanded some of the delinquents, and the next thing anyone knew, he’d shown up on the phan-site and his heart was changed,” Kasumi explained. “No one knew how to react to the new him. Everyone kept waiting for him to go back to how he was. But he didn’t. And one day he just wasn’t there anymore.”

“That… That wasn’t our fault… If one of us changed his heart, we found _something_ wrong…” Ryuji muttered.

Ann glared at him. “Listen to yourself! Listen to what she’s telling you! This isn’t how we’re supposed to do things! Whoever changed his heart _screwed it up!_ This isn’t what the Phantom Thieves are supposed to be like!”

“This is what Akira wants!” Ryuji said furiously. “He’s the one who told us we were going to do more, to make sure shit like Shido never got the chance to have power. To make sure no one else had to suffer like Goro or any of the rest of us! I’m not turning on our leader because some little girl marched in here and demanded that we stop! He brought us back from _nothing!_ ”

There was a sharp crack, and Ryuji froze. Ann had marched forward and slapped him. “Listen,” she said dangerously. “Don’t you remember? He didn’t bring us back. We were in prison. After we disappeared. Don’t you remember the blue prison? Akira said that he made the deal to bring us back, but we were never gone. That means he was _tricked_, and he’s still being tricked right now. Goro didn’t die, Ryuji. He was trapped like us.”

Ryuji stared at her, and as he blinked, dumbfounded, the silver in his eyes ebbed away as well. “We… There was a blue prison. Where was that?”

“Apparently it’s called the Velvet Room,” Kasumi said. “And the false god was using it to lie to Akira. But yeah, Goro’s alive. He’s here in the Palace, with Akira, wherever they went. He sent me to get all of you.”

Ryuji sat back down heavily on his sofa.

“.......okay what the _fuck_.”

***

It was easy to see, with Ryuji and Ann at her sides, how Akira had kept going for so long. Once they were no longer trapped under the delusion, they were bright and vibrant and energizing. And they were invaluable in convincing the other Thieves, knowing more personal things that could draw them out of Akira’s madness, while Kasumi had only been aiming blindly.

Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba… One by one they woke them from the haze they’d been living in. It took variations in argument to convince each of them, but ultimately, the message was the same. You couldn’t punish people for thoughts. You couldn’t condemn someone based on the actions of another. And you couldn’t protect people by stealing their free will away.

The Thieves were horrified by how militant they had become. And their determination to save their leader was almost enough to bury Kasumi beneath the flood of it. It was easy to see why people would like them, when they were like this. It was almost enough to make her forget why she’d hated them so much.

But in the end, this was still a mission to save Tokyo, not Akira, at least for her. Even as the group continued to grow, she kept that goal in mind. They were victims, but it didn’t absolve them. She needed them to help her stop the false god, to get Goro and Akira back so that Akira couldn’t do any more damage. And so it was her pushing open the final door to where the last Thief was waiting, ready to finish this Palace and get this over with.

Haru’s room was elegant, just like what Kasumi knew of her. She was on the far side of the room, through a sliding glass door that led to a large greenhouse area. When she noticed them, she put down her watering can and returned inside, surprised to see the whole crowd come to visit.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“You’re Haru, right?” Kasumi said. “I’ve come with your friends. The Phantom Thieves have to stop.”

“Stop?” Haru tilted her head. “No. I don’t even know who you are.”

“You don’t understand,” Makoto said. “We’ve made a huge mistake. We’ve become exactly the sort of thing that we’re supposed to be protecting society from. People are afraid of us.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Mako-chan,” Haru said, and despite the friendly nickname, her tone was cold. “They took my father from me. I will _not_ allow that to happen to anyone else. I won’t allow anyone else to lose their loved ones when we could prevent it.”

The silver in her eyes grew brighter, and Kasumi gritted her teeth. “You don’t want anyone else to lose a loved one?” she said, and bitterness crept into her tone. “You’re failing, then. I’m sure you’re protecting some people, but it’s at the expense of others. Fathers, mothers… Teachers, coworkers, friends… Vanishing into nothing because you changed their hearts, and they’re gone from cognition!”

“That’s not true!” Haru cried. “Changing hearts doesn’t steal people!”

“No, she’s right!” Ann said.

“People are disappearing in the streets,” Ryuji said.

“We’ve made a world where if we change someone’s heart, it has a chance to remove them from society completely,” Yusuke said.

“We have to stop,” Futaba insisted.

Kasumi took a deep breath. “My father disappeared, because of you,” she told Haru. “Because someone targeted him for a petty reason, and you changed his heart anyway. Why is your father, or anyone else’s, more important than mine? What do you have to say for yourself, hurting me like that?!”

Haru looked taken aback by the appeal. Her eyes darted around the group, searching, and then she said tentatively, “...where’s Mona-chan?”

Kasumi stared at her. “Lavenza said that when you all started to go off the rails, Hope was the first thing to disappear. Because there can be no hope without free will. And I’m assuming that means Mona vanished, too.”

“No…” Haru squeaked, and that seemed to be enough to finally shatter the silver tainting her eyes. She was finally awake. “What… We were… We were trying to do good… Mona-chan…”

“There’s still a chance to bring him back,” Kasumi said. “But we have to get to Akira and Goro, or this is never going to end.”

Haru looked unsteady, but Ann went over and wrapped an arm around her, tugging her in close as she processed everything. The other Thieves followed, taking care of their own, and Kasumi stepped back towards the door. Just a little more. One more stop, and she could bring the Phantom Thieves back to reality. And then…

Was it her responsibility to fight a god, even if it was false?

Maybe.

***

As it turned out, Goro had been right. When they at last opened the doors to the antechamber, the dark wood and homely lights absolutely gave off the same air as Leblanc. Making their way through the castle had been simple with all the Thieves together; the guards did nothing to try to stop them, since they were residents of the Palace, and they all vouched for Kasumi. So it was an unimpeded trip to where they were now: standing before the door to the throne room, facing one last guard.

_“It’s rare for you all to visit together,”_ the guard said. _“The Seraphim will be pleased to see you.”_

“...Seraphim?” Makoto questioned.

“Oh no,” Kasumi said as the guard stepped aside to open the doors for them. “He wouldn’t.”

The throne room beyond looked like what would have happened if someone morphed Leblanc’s attic to a cathedral. Warm tones of wood, tall windows with light streaming in, the beams and ceiling painted with intricate, swirling patterns of golden stars… And sitting on the throne was Akira, his eyes fully golden, and beside him was…

“God damn it, Goro-senpai,” Kasumi muttered. His grey jacket and crimson gloves were fading out to white, morphing to something closer to Akira’s robes, and white bled down into the blue of his cape as if the color was draining from the fabric. His eyes now carried the familiar silver ring of Akira’s influence, and he didn’t react to their appearance at all. He stayed where he was, perched on the arm of the throne, expression blank except for the occasional twitch that might have been a frown.

The other Thieves looked horrified by the sight, but Kasumi just pushed her way to the front. “Akira!” she demanded. “You said you would stop! You sent me to find them! What is this?!”

“I know,” Akira said with a soft smile. “But I was mistaken. I spoke to our Lord, and he assured me that this was the best way. And Goro agrees as well.”

Goro said nothing, and Kasumi sighed. “Okay, great. You just took _his_ free will. I figured he wouldn’t agree to this.”

“It’s only temporary,” Akira said fondly, reaching up to brush his knuckles against Goro’s cheek. “After a while, he’ll be able to act on his own again. Right, Goro?”

For a moment, it looked like Goro wanted to say something, but then his expression smoothed back out to neutral. The Thieves looked at each other, incredibly unnerved, and finally Futaba said, hushed, “I didn’t realize things had gotten this bad.”

“Dude, this isn’t okay!” Ryuji called. “All that shit you put us through, making sure Goro was out from under his dad’s thumb, just for you to stick him under yours?”

“You’re… You’re not a god, Akira, you can’t make decisions for everyone like this! You can’t control people!” Makoto pleaded.

Akira stared at them, then got to his feet and walked down the stairs in front of the throne, Goro at his heels. As he got closer, Kasumi realized he was even paler than he had been just a few hours ago. He looked like a wraith, the blond in his hair getting more prominent as he fell further under the false god’s influence. 

“‘Not okay’?” he repeated back, sounding incredulous. “Have any of you considered what happens if you try to make things ‘right’? I made this deal because the world was ending. Mementos had invaded reality. Shadows were killing people. All of you were gone! I can’t undo that and watch everything be ruined. I can’t lose everything again. I won’t!”

“We weren’t gone, Akira!” Ann pleaded. “It was a trick! We were just trapped, and it made you think it brought us back to life, even Goro! It’s a fraud!”

“The world is only ending because that thing caused it,” Kasumi snapped. “And if we have to go through you to get to it, so be it.”

“Kasumi-chan…” Haru began, and Kasumi tossed a glare over her shoulder.

“At this point, we’re not accomplishing anything without a fight, so you need to accept that we’re gonna have to attack him,” she said sharply.

Akira laughed. “I took it easy on you before. But Goro’s with me, now. We won’t let you condemn the world back to ruin.” His wings, which had been folded at his back, arched out again, weapons of heavenly fire reforming in his hands. This time, Goro had wings too, just one set, arched and snowy white, and his blue beam saber was glowing white and gold instead.

No one wanted to hurt them. But Kasumi was right. They were out of options.

Futaba dropped back, calling Prometheus. “Goro’s still got his usual stuff, so he’s immune to guns and weak to psychokinesis,” she said, even as they prepared to fight. “Akira’s… I don’t know. He’s immune to bless and he’ll drain curse, but it doesn’t look like he’s resistant or weak to anything else, so the rest should work, if we can wear him down.”

“Psychokinesis?” Kasumi asked, and Haru stepped forward. 

“That’s me. Astarte, _psiodyne!_ ”

She aimed right for Goro, ready to do whatever she had to. But Akira got in the way and blocked the hit, and the fight began in earnest. Akira and Goro were fast, faster than they were prepared for, but they outnumbered the seraphim and could watch each other’s backs. It was unfortunately easier to aim at Akira. He was the more aggressive fighter, and he took hits intended for Goro where he could. Goro’s attacks were slower, with an element of hesitation before he would strike, and Kasumi hoped desperately that those pauses meant he was fighting whatever mind control Akira had put him under.

“All of you are going to ruin everything!” Akira shouted. “I won’t let you make all of this a waste!” He darted back, throwing his arms wide, and roared, _”Divine Arsène!”_

The Thieves collectively froze, looking up in horror at the massive persona that formed above Akira. Arsène looked _wrong_ with the rich crimson drained out of him and his limbs weighed down with golden chains. His wings were piebald with black and white feathers, spanning wider than Akira and Goro standing side-by-side, and the jagged slash of his mouth looked even more intimidating than it did when he was his normal self.

“How is he doing that?!” Ryuji shouted, frantic.

“M-Mona told us you can’t have a persona if you have a Palace!” Makoto gasped.

Kasumi scowled. “This place already isn’t normal. Is this _really_ surprising?”

Akira laughed, deep and hysterical. _“Maeigaon!”_

Arsène made a wide, sweeping gesture. The curse spell crashed down on all of them, and while everyone staggered, it sent Kasumi to the floor with a scream. Her instinct was to force herself up immediately, used to springing up from falls both intentional and not, but the pain crawling over her skin and burrowing into her bones kept her down. To her surprise, though, the Thieves moved to shield her from any follow-up strikes, and Goro visibly flinched when he saw her hurt. Kasumi struggled slowly back to her feet, and Ann appeared at her elbow, already casting a healing spell.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” Kasumi said. “What do we do against that, though? He’s so powerful.”

“He hit your weakness. You’re a bless elemental,” Ann explained. “We just have to make sure to watch for when he does that again.”

It was a grueling, strenuous fight, hindered not only by the strength of their opponent, but the fact that none of them truly _wanted_ to fight him. Seeing Akira in this state, with Arsène so corrupted, it was causing all of them pain. But the longer the battle went on, the more clear it became that it was turning into an endurance match. They couldn’t defeat each other, so someone was going to wear out first. And with the power of a god behind him, that someone was likely not going to be Akira.

But they still held out hope. The more hits Akira took for Goro, the more of his power he had to draw on to keep going, leaving less power for other things. And finally, after a particularly devastating agidyne that left the Thieves trying desperately to recover, his control snapped.

Kasumi saw the moment that Goro’s eyes filled with awareness, the silver in them vanishing in a brief flash. He blinked, taking in the scene before him: the Thieves scattered and injured, and Akira prepared to bring another spell down on them. Without any of the hesitation from the rest of the battle, he moved, putting himself between Akira and the rest. Akechi Goro did not beg for anything, but he was begging now. “Akira, you have to stop! You have to stop this, or people are going to die. Your _friends_ are going to die!”

“But we won’t,” Akira said simply, and Goro’s mouth fell open. Akira continued, gesturing around them, “Our Lord will remake this world into something better! Anything that is lost will have been too corrupt to live anyway. It will be a new world, a beautiful world, free of people that lie and steal and hurt others. And us, our Lord’s angels, we’ll be there to watch over it.”

Kasumi pushed herself up, trying to lift her gun for another shot with shaking arms. “Goro-senpai, he might actually be too far gone,” she said.

Goro swallowed hard. “Kasumi, give me that,” he ordered, holding out a hand.

“What?”

“Now.” He took a few steps away from Akira so that she could reach up and press the gun into his waiting hand, then took a deep breath. Akira was watching him with interest, and he raised the weapon to point directly at his boyfriend.

Akira’s gaze was bright, curious. “This is familiar, isn’t it?” he said lightly. But then his eyes flew wide as Goro instead pressed the gun’s barrel beneath his own chin. “W-What are you doing?!”

“Stop this, Akira,” Goro said quietly. If the catalyst for Akira’s deal had been to bring him back to life, heedless of the fact that he had never died, that meant there was a guaranteed way to get Akira to listen. And this was that way. Take himself hostage, and force Akira to wake up and face what he was doing. “Reject the false god’s powers, and stop.”

“Goro, don’t do that. Put the gun down.” Akira took a step towards him, but Goro matched it with a step back, his thief gear slowly regaining the color that had bleached from it, feathers molting as his wings dissolved.

“I won’t put it down until you surrender.”

“Why are you doing this?!”

Akira’s cry was plaintive, wounded, the sound of someone being hurt and not understanding what was happening. But Goro’s voice was calm as he responded, “Because this isn’t you, Akira. I _know_ this isn’t you. And I can’t be with you if you’re more devoted to the Holy Grail, or whatever it’s called, than your friends. We just want to help you. Please, it’s not too late, if you’d just trust us.”

Akira started to speak, but the words locked in his throat as his gaze jumped from one Thief to the next, one by one until it returned to Goro and the gun he held. What had he been saying? He’d called his friends corrupt. He’d said it would be okay if they vanished, if they died. They only wanted to help, and he’d…

“Ryuji…” he whispered. “Ann, Haru, Yusuke, Makoto… Futaba… Goro…”

“We’re here for you, Akira,” Goro said softly. He held out his free hand. “I need you to come back to me.”

Tentatively, slowly, Akira reached up. His wings were already dissolving into a puddle of limp feathers, and as he laid his hand in Goro’s, the Palace began to quake like an earthquake had spawned directly under the foundations.

“We need to go _right now_,” Futaba said sharply. “This whole area just went really unstable.”

“We’re going to have to run, since we currently lack transportation,” Yusuke pointed out.

“We know how to get out of the Palace, though,” Makoto said. “Since we lived here…”

And that was certainly an uncomfortable thought. But they didn’t have time to dwell on it as the Palace shook again, dust falling from the ceiling in streams. Goro looked into Akira’s eyes, watching them fade from gold to grey, and then the other boy slumped forward weakly into his arms. Goro gathered him up, trying to ignore how he was far too light, and started for the door. “Let’s go!”

They made it all the way to the entrance hall garden before the castle began to cave in on itself. From the front doors, they could see the hints of utopia fading from the rest of the city, and as the castle collapsed entirely, the nav activated and spit them into the streets of Yongen-Jaya.

Night had fallen since Kasumi and Goro had entered, leaving the area deserted of people to witness nine teenagers landing in a heap in the street. They all struggled to orient themselves, though for most of them, it was more difficult than it should have been, after living exclusively in the metaverse for a month.

“Okay,” Ryuji said, out of breath. “I know we had other shit to worry about at the time, but who is she?” He pointed at Kasumi, who was lying on the pavement with Futaba sprawled across her legs.

“Apparently I was the only person who realized you were out of control who didn’t have their heart changed,” Kasumi huffed. “And Goro-senpai was the only one who would listen.”

“Aww,” Futaba giggled weakly. “She calls you senpai. That’s adorable.”

Makoto sat up with great effort, hanging her head. “We can’t stay in the middle of the street… We have to get up…”

“In a minute,” Ann whined.

Goro knew they needed to get up. All of the Thieves probably needed to be looked over by Takemi. They definitely needed food and rest. But all he could concentrate on was Akira, shivering and burrowing into his chest and sobbing quietly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he was repeating into Goro’s shirt, and Goro hushed him.

“I already told you that I forgive you,” he murmured. “It’s okay. We’re going to take you home, get you something to eat, and figure out where to go from here. So stop crying, so we can make sure you don’t pass out in the middle of the street.”

At the mention of food, Akira’s stomach growled so loudly that everyone heard it, and he hiccuped a laugh through his tears. “Th-That sounds good…”

***

_[This is Akechi on Akira’s phone. We’ve got them. But they’re very hungry. Meet you at Leblanc.]_

Texting Sojiro didn’t give him much of a head start, but it did mean that by the time they dragged themselves to their feet and stumbled to the cafe, there were three giant pots of curry cooking on the stove, and Sojiro himself was rushing around the counter to grab Futaba into a hug. “Good lord, where have you kids been?!”

Somehow he managed to secure Futaba in one arm and reach for Akira with the other, and Akira went without complaint, hiding his puffy eyes and drawn features in the man’s shoulder.

“Hi, Sojiro,” he whispered, and Sojiro squeezed him.

“I knew you weren’t taking care of yourself, you pain in the ass,” he said, but his tone was nothing but fond. “Go sit down and let me feed you. All of you, right now.”

They filed into the booths obediently. On a good day, Yusuke could demolish half a pot of curry by himself; today, all of them were eating like they were starving, which Goro was certain they were. Sojiro kept the food coming, letting them have their fill, and in-between making sure they weren’t eating so fast that they got sick, more details came out about what had happened in the Palace.

Eventually, in their warped perspective, it had gotten easier not to leave the metaverse. Why come home when you could see an update on the phan-site and just leave from the castle? Akira had been subsisting on the false god’s power during that time, and had been sustaining his friends from that. And to no one’s surprise, he’d been giving them more and keeping only the minimum for himself, leaving himself near-starved by the time they returned to reality.

“I thought you were dead. I thought everyone was dead,” he said softly, leaning into Goro as he finished his second bowl of curry. It had been a cold, selfish choice, wishing distortion on the whole world just to bring his loved ones back. But it was a choice that had been made in a haze of grief and fear and adrenaline, and none of them could blame him for it. Not really. Even Kasumi understood, to a degree.

Akira looked across the table at Kasumi and extended his hand, palm up. When she frowned, but accepted it, he squeezed her fingers loosely and said, “Thank you. You saved all of us. We don’t have much time to recover, but we’re going to have to fight the Grail, and I would be honored if you’d fight by our side.”

“Will destroying it fix everything? Will it bring back the people who vanished?” Kasumi asked.

“I don’t know. Most likely, since its power is what’s warping reality now. Things should revert to how they’re supposed to be. But I can’t promise that,” Akira said.

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded, determined. “I’ll do it. I’ll make sure that thing goes down for what it’s done.”

The bell over the door chimed despite the closed sign, and when they looked over, Lavenza was standing in the doorway, a small bundle in her arms. Akira’s eyes widened when he saw her, but he didn’t speak, ashamed of how he’d treated her. But she smiled warmly at him and came over to the table, paying no attention to Sojiro’s confused staring from behind the counter.

“Trickster,” she said. “I’m so glad that all of you are safe.”

“I’m… I’m sor—” he began, but she shook her head.

“Do not apologize. You were not yourself,” she admonished gently. “I have merely come to tell you that my aid is still available to you, even though my master remains imprisoned. And that with the nine of you free, there is just enough Hope in the world to restore something lost.”

She set the bundle on the table, and from inside, a tuxedo kitten poked his head out, looking around at all of them with bright blue eyes. Ann and Haru squealed immediately, and Akira teared up again. “M-Morgana?”

“Akira!” Morgana chirped, his voice high and even more childish than usual. He squirmed out of the blanket that Lavenza had wrapped him in, crossing the table on paws that looked too big for his body. “Thank goodness you’re okay! All of you are okay!”

“You’re so tiny,” Akira said, lifting a shaking hand and covering Morgana’s entire body with his palm. Only his head and his tiny pointy tail stuck out. It put a soft smile on Akira’s face despite his welling eyes.

“Don’t make fun of me because I’m small!” Morgana insisted. “I’ll get bigger when there’s more Hope. This isn’t permane— Hey!” Haru had abandoned her food to scoop him up from under Akira’s hand and cuddle him, and his squeaky meows made the rest of them smile, too.

Goro just pulled Akira closer, solid against him as a silent promise to never let him go again. Across the table, he met Kasumi’s gaze, and they shared a brief, simple smile. Whatever was coming, whatever they had to do to stop the false god that had caused all of this pain, they would do it.

She might not be a phantom thief, but at this point, she was one of them. And no one would dare say otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Seraph Akira (and Angel Goro) boss music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s8SEYDS9K0). I had a lot of fun with this Palace concept. I wish that I'd done even more, but talking down each Thief would have gotten repetitive, and unfortunately Kasumi and Goro weren't going to waste time properly exploring the utopia city.
> 
> Please do not put any Royal spoilers in the comments until the game is out in English. At the time of writing this, I know nothing about what Kasumi’s actual character arc is about, and I don’t want to. If there are spoilers pre-English release, your comment will be deleted.
> 
> I’ve written a lot of words since the last time I talked about the mechanics of having a persona and a Palace, so I’ve [expanded a little](https://twilightknight17.tumblr.com/post/188895390914/so-roughlyjesus-tumblr-says-it-was-two-years) on an older post. And I have some thoughts about how the rest of this ending would play out, but that’s trivia probably better for a tumblr post at a later date instead of making this note a hundred miles long. Writing the Yald fight once was enough, thank you. :P
> 
> As is becoming custom, I will leave you with links. I hope you enjoyed! Thank you to my server squad and also Jade who all let me yell about this at them. <3
> 
> [Hours Tag](https://twilightknight17.tumblr.com/tagged/Hours!verse/chrono)   
[Series Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZDULOqmHn6yzd5OtULNTPwiJgZFsPd1S)   
[Series Tropes Page](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/HoursVerse)


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